At this point you did not have other artifacts and have open mana. If you sacrifice replica in response to oxidda scrapmelter your opp will destroy his own trigon.
Because your deck was rather strong you have space for such mistakes.
Hi guys, i've tried to reach you by mail, but I haven't got an answer.
I want to correct some errors before you decide to publish this article or not, so please, change the state of the article so I can correct them.
Also, seems that it looks very ugly reading it with Internet Explorer but looks ok with Firefox, I don't know why, so I would like to correct that too.
I suggest picking a two or three color combination of colors you like and chipping away at the good lands for those colors.
Example 1: You want to play GW and try Elves and GW Aggro. You would want Savannah + Temple Garden + 7 fetch lands, which cost about 55 tickets. However, start out by getting just Temple Garden (2 tickets), Windswept Heath (5 tickets), Misty Rainforest (3.5 tickets), and perhaps a couple of Mirage fetches (about 0.4 tickets each). That's a way to start off with part of your mana base for 12 tickets or so, and you can chip away at that by getting another fetchland once in a while. Then when Savannah drops to 10 or so with ME4, you can take a plunge for that.
Example 2: You want to play GWB Rock colors. Get Temple Garden (2), Overgrown Tomb (1.75), and the 4 Forest fetch lands (18). Add the two Mirage forest fetch lands (0.55). Throw in Three Visits and Nature's Lore to find forests. That can add up to a pretty decent mana base on a budget, but it's also one that you can readily upgrade into something competitive if you chip away at it.
These examples assume that you can budget 10 or 20 tickets to at least try out a deck and then pump a few more tickets into it to upgrade it once in a while.
well, most mono-colored or nearly mono-colored weenie decks are a good place to start for budget reasons. Elves and White Weenies are both relatively inexpensive.
Control options are a bit more expensive. However you can probably put together a reasonably strong UW control deck without spending a whole lot. However missing Force of Will and a number of the other strong expensive blue cards will noticeably hurt the deck.
You put into words what lot of us had been thinking as a way to explain the Mythic cards/weird number of rares, sheer number of utter crap at rare. I feel almost 100% positive what you said happened is exactly what went down, but the question is WHY???? Who put the kebash on so many player's happiness? What is their long-term plan for classic/vintage??? who is Worth REALLY working for???? The KGB? CIA? MI6? FBI? CCCP? PETA? BPRD?
When I first saw Khalni Gem, which reads "Artifact -- 4, When Khalni Gem enters the battlefield, return two lands you control to their owner's hand. {T}: Add two mana of any one color to your mana pool." my first thought was it wasn't constructed viable.
I was right. I have never Khalni Gem in ANY constructed deck EVER.
My second thought was that they could make Khalni Gem constructed viable by reducing it's mana cost for 4 to 0 and call it Khalni Mox.
If you take Khalni Mox and make it skip a land drop instead of returning two lands, you then need more drawbacks. Come into play tapped and Reflecting Pool instead of any color.
Hello, Mox Mirror. I think you are strong, yet not broken, and are constructed viable. I think you are a marquee rare that would sell a set because people see you as broken. Am I right on this? I don't think we will ever know, since I have no plans to playtest.
I always viewed the cost of lands a barrier to entry for 100cs. Sure, I can get pain lands and tap lands for much cheaper than the original duals/shock lands/sac lands, but in a format with mostly broken cards, these things can set you behind the curve as a new player to the format. Any suggestions to break the cost barrier for entry?
It's players like Nafiz that make me wish I had more time at the events to play myself. He always brings decks that show how much he knows about magic and how much preparation and innovation he has put in.
This article is a suberb discussion of personal experience, psychology and the formats available online for the competitive player. I like how sober it is yet at the same time gives people real algorithms for success and enjoyment online.
I like the theory I'd like to add that I fi d it strange that the mythic symbol spoilers were issued. I mean it's a five minute job to Photoshop or replace or just spoil without showing a med4 mockup. It's either very sloppy or someone wanted this to be public knowledge. Also if there was no power than the numbers of mythics would have been so low that they would have been more frequent than the rares. I agree that power nine was in the draft set close to a week before the spoiler and for whatever reason it was bottled. One other thing that does not sit right was why after pushing the set back did they not push back the spoilers and correct the rarity symbols. If we never knew that the set intended to have mythics we would have been u aware that power was pulled very late in the day.
I have the utmost respect to those who have limited time but still like to play mainstream formats. I also said that twice in the article. But I also said that if you can't get what you're looking for in those formats, then there are a lot of other options too.
To be completely honest, I do like the look of the current Standard and there are a few decks I can imagine myself playing. But sadly I just don't have neither the time nor the energy to give the format a try. And besides, just like Marcus said, there isn't much room for deck building in Standard and all one can do is to build really mean sideboards(and by the way, the new nickname sounds great Marcus).
Limited formats are totally out of my knowledge and that's the reason why I didn't write anything about them in the article. But I do know that drafting in the game shop is a lot of fun and a great way to enjoy Magic (without the fear of getting beaten by a thousand dollar deck as Felorin said).
Nice summary of 100CS. I might quibble with a deck or two in this list, but overall this is a great picture of the metagame. I'll look forward to your thoughts on the bannings.
I'm certain that they don't look at the list every month. And when they do look at it, I don't think they're looking at the right metrics.
Anyway, it's great to see somebody consistently write about 100CS over on PureMTGO. You have written a number of articles geared toward interesting new players in the format and helping them get up to speed, and that is one of the ingredients 100CS needs to grow a bit. I actually think the format is in half decent shape - after more than a year, we have consistently fired our tournaments except for this recent stretch in which we had 4 Friday time slots in a short span. I know the 2-man's don't rapid-fire one after another all day, but I have been able to get into 2-mans much easier lately than I could before the payouts switched to M11.
So keep up the good work. Some potential new players do read these articles, and hopefully everybody else will remember to be friendly to new players and help them along so some of them can become be the next 100CS stalwarts.
I have a lot of the same issues with available time to play, and sticking to one or two formats & mastering it makes a lot of sense.
But I still play a ton of different formats, just 'cause I crave variety. :D
I did start playing at the easier of two local gaming stores to be more a "big fish in a small pond", but I play at the other one now too (more in draft, which I'm stronger at & can't be blown out by a thousand dollar deck). More strong players/decks have started showing up in constructed standard at my "small pond" store too, but my rogue decks can often still 3-1 there. 4-0s are getting scarcer for me, but so be it.
I love PREs to bits, but don't play in as many of them as I used to. My eventual intended solution is 1) Get Rich, 2) Play more Magic. (Also more travel & chasing women & fine restaurants, but those are secondary.)
So far I'm still working on step 1. But I think this plan could work out yet, we'll see!
I find it amusing that in the comments of a tribal article a few weeks ago there was an argument about Moat needing to be banned and BOOM!, a few days later it was done.
Do they take a look at the banned list every month? People complain about many powerful cards and it would be nice to get an explanation about why they are banning certain cards. Even just a few words from them would be appreciated by the player base.
As usual the screams come from people that like "fun" formats (like the "no cloudpost" crowd found at the multiplayer room, that on the other hand, just concede to a stone rain.)
The most absurd part about that, is that this kind of bannings do lead to degenerate metagames, where control decks can't compete, combo decks run rampant.
A metagame dominated by combo, that is "fun" for sure.
I've never faced the Arc Trail vs. Scrapmelter pick before this draft. I think it's a little like being asked whether you want a briefcase full of money or a brick of gold. You can't go too far wrong even if you take the second best pick, 'cause they're both awesome. Again though, here my judgement was clouded by thinking red was just going to be a splash color for me, which was clearly not the case.
I would tend to agree that Arc Trail is more an early-game blowout (or at least a huge stall), and Scrapmelter is a mid to late game blowout, and this deck had late game and needed early game, so Arc Trail should get the nod there. Occasionally Scrapmelter will save you from some late-game bomb, but Arc Trail is going to be what the deck needs much more often, generally. Even late game there's often a relevant 2/2 flyer or something that's worth taking out with it.
My favorite Arc Trail to date was from the 5k sealed I recently played in. My opponent laid turn 1 Spikeshot Elder, turn 2 Leonin Abunas. While it still had summoning sickness, I Arc Trailed the pair of 'em. Yeah, I won that game. :)
I think the Turn to Slag vs. Artisan pick can be considered in context of where the deck is going, too. Normally you pick removal (especially top quality removal like this one) over anything but a genuine bomb. Since Artisan is more like "bomb junior" compared to something like a dragon or a sunblast angel, I'd say he'd be more worth considering in a deck that's really short on win conditions or just short on creatures in general. Since this deck had a pretty solid amount of ways to beat down by that point, that's one more argument in favor of Turn to Slag. Likewise the deck didn't have a ton of removal. Most of the time a deck is in the state of "need more removal", or if you're fortunate "have enough, but one more would still be good". You'll almost never be in a situation where you have so much removal you wouldn't take another. (And if that happened, I might take Slag to "upgrade" over one of my weaker removal spells & cut it from the deck.)
If you look at it in terms of PV's recently article on "playing to win" vs. "playing to not lose", removal falls into the "playing to not lose" side of the equation. Which is often, I think, the more powerful approach to the game. It's more about consistency, whereas "playing to win" often involves more of a gamble.
Thanks for your thoughts on those picks, I think the deck could have been stronger if I'd gone the way you suggest. I initially valued white and red about equally in the set, but I think the pro consensus that red is the best color is correct. It's also perfectly valid to go into a color in Scars even if you're only going to get 2-4 cards in it, if they're really strong cards. So I should perhaps jump on the high power level cards a bit more than I have been, and even ignore signals when it's appropriate. (Knowing when that is can be tricky, of course! It's more appropriate when you're drafting a ton of artifacts than when you're not, for one thing.)
Up until now, they have only reprinted from previous Master's Edition sets to fill out limited themes (Faeries in ME3, Artifacts here in ME4). Then they added the dual lands to ME4, which break the policy.
So while the policy can definitely change in the future, except for the dual lands, this has been a policy that was followed. I agree, if they do a ME5, it's likely they would have to break this policy significantly, and reprint large chunks from earlier sets.
Good article, love the presentation of data. Your theory on the last-minute evolution of the set is probably close to true.
Some points of conention:
Cruel Bargain is not yet online, nor in ME4. It's a lynchpin for a deck called "Spanish Inquisition", a Tier-2(ish) Legacy deck. It's absence isn't of utmost importance to the format, but it's a notable absence.
Considering the success of sinkhole in the paper metagame, it's unlikely that the card was ever anything but rare. Both you and I are just flapping gums in the wind with these assumptions, but it only seems logical that a chase card, a powerful card, would be promoted to rare.
Blue elemental blast is a common because it has a black expansion symbol, but cannot be played in pauper because promos are not part of the card pool due to lazy coding. If wotc ever 'fixes' the pauper pool to recognize promos, then blue would be legal and red would not be. Though a future release of the promo red blast would solve that issue.
You refer to the "rule of not reprinting ME cards in later ME sets", but that is a misconception. Brand manager Worth Wolpert stated on the old forum boards, that Force of Will would not be reprinted in future ME sets. He mentioned nothing of other ME cards and never has done so. He recently clarified that position on the official boards.
"It is not at all hard to check for legality in Heirloom. Merely look up the fairly well maintained list on this very site (in the forums) or at the site set up by Nagarjuna. Both sites have the legal list for the month. Some updates do occur but they are handsful and easily tracked once you see what is currently legal."
Did someone suggest it was hard?
I was just suggesting it wasn't exactly the quickest format to jump into :)
Of course, the flip side of that is how it is a fantastic opportunity for deck brewers to work their craft and come up with cool stuff we don't get to do in mainstream formats. Rogue Play!
Yeah, the Moat decision makes me think that WotC is just making banning decisions for the fringe formats based on which cards players are screaming about the loudest.
Of course the test for that is if Scapeshift is banned in 100cs next month, since many players have been screaming about it lately even though it's still somewhat under the radar when it comes to Weekend Challenge appearances.
Yes UW control is all over the place, and I imagine it will be for just about ever. It's for that reason that I'm considering putting Volition Reins back in the main, but we'll have to see.
Turn 6: Oxidda Scrapmelter kills my replica.
At this point you did not have other artifacts and have open mana. If you sacrifice replica in response to oxidda scrapmelter your opp will destroy his own trigon.
Because your deck was rather strong you have space for such mistakes.
It's a Hellboy reference.
Hi guys, i've tried to reach you by mail, but I haven't got an answer.
I want to correct some errors before you decide to publish this article or not, so please, change the state of the article so I can correct them.
Also, seems that it looks very ugly reading it with Internet Explorer but looks ok with Firefox, I don't know why, so I would like to correct that too.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
I suggest picking a two or three color combination of colors you like and chipping away at the good lands for those colors.
Example 1: You want to play GW and try Elves and GW Aggro. You would want Savannah + Temple Garden + 7 fetch lands, which cost about 55 tickets. However, start out by getting just Temple Garden (2 tickets), Windswept Heath (5 tickets), Misty Rainforest (3.5 tickets), and perhaps a couple of Mirage fetches (about 0.4 tickets each). That's a way to start off with part of your mana base for 12 tickets or so, and you can chip away at that by getting another fetchland once in a while. Then when Savannah drops to 10 or so with ME4, you can take a plunge for that.
Example 2: You want to play GWB Rock colors. Get Temple Garden (2), Overgrown Tomb (1.75), and the 4 Forest fetch lands (18). Add the two Mirage forest fetch lands (0.55). Throw in Three Visits and Nature's Lore to find forests. That can add up to a pretty decent mana base on a budget, but it's also one that you can readily upgrade into something competitive if you chip away at it.
These examples assume that you can budget 10 or 20 tickets to at least try out a deck and then pump a few more tickets into it to upgrade it once in a while.
well, most mono-colored or nearly mono-colored weenie decks are a good place to start for budget reasons. Elves and White Weenies are both relatively inexpensive.
Control options are a bit more expensive. However you can probably put together a reasonably strong UW control deck without spending a whole lot. However missing Force of Will and a number of the other strong expensive blue cards will noticeably hurt the deck.
Bureau of paranormal research and defense!
OK what is BPRD? (The only acronym I didn't get.)
You put into words what lot of us had been thinking as a way to explain the Mythic cards/weird number of rares, sheer number of utter crap at rare. I feel almost 100% positive what you said happened is exactly what went down, but the question is WHY???? Who put the kebash on so many player's happiness? What is their long-term plan for classic/vintage??? who is Worth REALLY working for???? The KGB? CIA? MI6? FBI? CCCP? PETA? BPRD?
The truth is out there man...
Goblin Burn deck seems like a budget choice (isn't it always?)
When I first saw Khalni Gem, which reads "Artifact -- 4, When Khalni Gem enters the battlefield, return two lands you control to their owner's hand. {T}: Add two mana of any one color to your mana pool." my first thought was it wasn't constructed viable.
I was right. I have never Khalni Gem in ANY constructed deck EVER.
My second thought was that they could make Khalni Gem constructed viable by reducing it's mana cost for 4 to 0 and call it Khalni Mox.
If you take Khalni Mox and make it skip a land drop instead of returning two lands, you then need more drawbacks. Come into play tapped and Reflecting Pool instead of any color.
Hello, Mox Mirror. I think you are strong, yet not broken, and are constructed viable. I think you are a marquee rare that would sell a set because people see you as broken. Am I right on this? I don't think we will ever know, since I have no plans to playtest.
I always viewed the cost of lands a barrier to entry for 100cs. Sure, I can get pain lands and tap lands for much cheaper than the original duals/shock lands/sac lands, but in a format with mostly broken cards, these things can set you behind the curve as a new player to the format. Any suggestions to break the cost barrier for entry?
It's players like Nafiz that make me wish I had more time at the events to play myself. He always brings decks that show how much he knows about magic and how much preparation and innovation he has put in.
This article is a suberb discussion of personal experience, psychology and the formats available online for the competitive player. I like how sober it is yet at the same time gives people real algorithms for success and enjoyment online.
It was also a lot of fun to read.
X-
I like the theory I'd like to add that I fi d it strange that the mythic symbol spoilers were issued. I mean it's a five minute job to Photoshop or replace or just spoil without showing a med4 mockup. It's either very sloppy or someone wanted this to be public knowledge. Also if there was no power than the numbers of mythics would have been so low that they would have been more frequent than the rares. I agree that power nine was in the draft set close to a week before the spoiler and for whatever reason it was bottled. One other thing that does not sit right was why after pushing the set back did they not push back the spoilers and correct the rarity symbols. If we never knew that the set intended to have mythics we would have been u aware that power was pulled very late in the day.
Thanks again for the comments.
I have the utmost respect to those who have limited time but still like to play mainstream formats. I also said that twice in the article. But I also said that if you can't get what you're looking for in those formats, then there are a lot of other options too.
To be completely honest, I do like the look of the current Standard and there are a few decks I can imagine myself playing. But sadly I just don't have neither the time nor the energy to give the format a try. And besides, just like Marcus said, there isn't much room for deck building in Standard and all one can do is to build really mean sideboards(and by the way, the new nickname sounds great Marcus).
Limited formats are totally out of my knowledge and that's the reason why I didn't write anything about them in the article. But I do know that drafting in the game shop is a lot of fun and a great way to enjoy Magic (without the fear of getting beaten by a thousand dollar deck as Felorin said).
Thanks again for the comments.
LE
Nice summary of 100CS. I might quibble with a deck or two in this list, but overall this is a great picture of the metagame. I'll look forward to your thoughts on the bannings.
I'm certain that they don't look at the list every month. And when they do look at it, I don't think they're looking at the right metrics.
Anyway, it's great to see somebody consistently write about 100CS over on PureMTGO. You have written a number of articles geared toward interesting new players in the format and helping them get up to speed, and that is one of the ingredients 100CS needs to grow a bit. I actually think the format is in half decent shape - after more than a year, we have consistently fired our tournaments except for this recent stretch in which we had 4 Friday time slots in a short span. I know the 2-man's don't rapid-fire one after another all day, but I have been able to get into 2-mans much easier lately than I could before the payouts switched to M11.
So keep up the good work. Some potential new players do read these articles, and hopefully everybody else will remember to be friendly to new players and help them along so some of them can become be the next 100CS stalwarts.
I have a lot of the same issues with available time to play, and sticking to one or two formats & mastering it makes a lot of sense.
But I still play a ton of different formats, just 'cause I crave variety. :D
I did start playing at the easier of two local gaming stores to be more a "big fish in a small pond", but I play at the other one now too (more in draft, which I'm stronger at & can't be blown out by a thousand dollar deck). More strong players/decks have started showing up in constructed standard at my "small pond" store too, but my rogue decks can often still 3-1 there. 4-0s are getting scarcer for me, but so be it.
I love PREs to bits, but don't play in as many of them as I used to. My eventual intended solution is 1) Get Rich, 2) Play more Magic. (Also more travel & chasing women & fine restaurants, but those are secondary.)
So far I'm still working on step 1. But I think this plan could work out yet, we'll see!
I find it amusing that in the comments of a tribal article a few weeks ago there was an argument about Moat needing to be banned and BOOM!, a few days later it was done.
Do they take a look at the banned list every month? People complain about many powerful cards and it would be nice to get an explanation about why they are banning certain cards. Even just a few words from them would be appreciated by the player base.
As usual the screams come from people that like "fun" formats (like the "no cloudpost" crowd found at the multiplayer room, that on the other hand, just concede to a stone rain.)
The most absurd part about that, is that this kind of bannings do lead to degenerate metagames, where control decks can't compete, combo decks run rampant.
A metagame dominated by combo, that is "fun" for sure.
I've never faced the Arc Trail vs. Scrapmelter pick before this draft. I think it's a little like being asked whether you want a briefcase full of money or a brick of gold. You can't go too far wrong even if you take the second best pick, 'cause they're both awesome. Again though, here my judgement was clouded by thinking red was just going to be a splash color for me, which was clearly not the case.
I would tend to agree that Arc Trail is more an early-game blowout (or at least a huge stall), and Scrapmelter is a mid to late game blowout, and this deck had late game and needed early game, so Arc Trail should get the nod there. Occasionally Scrapmelter will save you from some late-game bomb, but Arc Trail is going to be what the deck needs much more often, generally. Even late game there's often a relevant 2/2 flyer or something that's worth taking out with it.
My favorite Arc Trail to date was from the 5k sealed I recently played in. My opponent laid turn 1 Spikeshot Elder, turn 2 Leonin Abunas. While it still had summoning sickness, I Arc Trailed the pair of 'em. Yeah, I won that game. :)
I think the Turn to Slag vs. Artisan pick can be considered in context of where the deck is going, too. Normally you pick removal (especially top quality removal like this one) over anything but a genuine bomb. Since Artisan is more like "bomb junior" compared to something like a dragon or a sunblast angel, I'd say he'd be more worth considering in a deck that's really short on win conditions or just short on creatures in general. Since this deck had a pretty solid amount of ways to beat down by that point, that's one more argument in favor of Turn to Slag. Likewise the deck didn't have a ton of removal. Most of the time a deck is in the state of "need more removal", or if you're fortunate "have enough, but one more would still be good". You'll almost never be in a situation where you have so much removal you wouldn't take another. (And if that happened, I might take Slag to "upgrade" over one of my weaker removal spells & cut it from the deck.)
If you look at it in terms of PV's recently article on "playing to win" vs. "playing to not lose", removal falls into the "playing to not lose" side of the equation. Which is often, I think, the more powerful approach to the game. It's more about consistency, whereas "playing to win" often involves more of a gamble.
Thanks for your thoughts on those picks, I think the deck could have been stronger if I'd gone the way you suggest. I initially valued white and red about equally in the set, but I think the pro consensus that red is the best color is correct. It's also perfectly valid to go into a color in Scars even if you're only going to get 2-4 cards in it, if they're really strong cards. So I should perhaps jump on the high power level cards a bit more than I have been, and even ignore signals when it's appropriate. (Knowing when that is can be tricky, of course! It's more appropriate when you're drafting a ton of artifacts than when you're not, for one thing.)
Wow, I could hear the X-files theme in my head as I read portions of this article :)
I can't help but wonder if they were worried if the servers could support the amount of drafting we'd all want to do if they included the P9.
Wouldn't surprise me at all to see such cards in a future "From the Vaults" sort of set. Would be highly priced, and easier on the servers.
Up until now, they have only reprinted from previous Master's Edition sets to fill out limited themes (Faeries in ME3, Artifacts here in ME4). Then they added the dual lands to ME4, which break the policy.
So while the policy can definitely change in the future, except for the dual lands, this has been a policy that was followed. I agree, if they do a ME5, it's likely they would have to break this policy significantly, and reprint large chunks from earlier sets.
Good article, love the presentation of data. Your theory on the last-minute evolution of the set is probably close to true.
Some points of conention:
Cruel Bargain is not yet online, nor in ME4. It's a lynchpin for a deck called "Spanish Inquisition", a Tier-2(ish) Legacy deck. It's absence isn't of utmost importance to the format, but it's a notable absence.
Considering the success of sinkhole in the paper metagame, it's unlikely that the card was ever anything but rare. Both you and I are just flapping gums in the wind with these assumptions, but it only seems logical that a chase card, a powerful card, would be promoted to rare.
Blue elemental blast is a common because it has a black expansion symbol, but cannot be played in pauper because promos are not part of the card pool due to lazy coding. If wotc ever 'fixes' the pauper pool to recognize promos, then blue would be legal and red would not be. Though a future release of the promo red blast would solve that issue.
You refer to the "rule of not reprinting ME cards in later ME sets", but that is a misconception. Brand manager Worth Wolpert stated on the old forum boards, that Force of Will would not be reprinted in future ME sets. He mentioned nothing of other ME cards and never has done so. He recently clarified that position on the official boards.
"It is not at all hard to check for legality in Heirloom. Merely look up the fairly well maintained list on this very site (in the forums) or at the site set up by Nagarjuna. Both sites have the legal list for the month. Some updates do occur but they are handsful and easily tracked once you see what is currently legal."
Did someone suggest it was hard?
I was just suggesting it wasn't exactly the quickest format to jump into :)
Of course, the flip side of that is how it is a fantastic opportunity for deck brewers to work their craft and come up with cool stuff we don't get to do in mainstream formats. Rogue Play!
Yeah, the Moat decision makes me think that WotC is just making banning decisions for the fringe formats based on which cards players are screaming about the loudest.
Of course the test for that is if Scapeshift is banned in 100cs next month, since many players have been screaming about it lately even though it's still somewhat under the radar when it comes to Weekend Challenge appearances.
Yes UW control is all over the place, and I imagine it will be for just about ever. It's for that reason that I'm considering putting Volition Reins back in the main, but we'll have to see.